The invention relates generally to computer graphics and more particularly to the generation of spatially varying effects applied to an arbitrary graphic region (e.g., highlighting, blurring, vertical rise, shading, lighting effects and the like).
Graphic artists often spend a significant amount of time generating spatially varying effects for a specified region such as a character, a string of characters or a graphic object or image. In one approach graphic artists apply a shading via an airbrush and then mask the resulting image so as to conform it to the prescribed region—repeating as needed to obtain the desired visual effect. While such techniques can be used to generate visually stunning effects, they typically require large amounts of time and/or a large degree of artistic ability. Thus, it would be beneficial to provide a mechanism to rapidly and, to a large degree automatically, generate spatially varying effects for arbitrarily defined regions.